


The Headsman's Wife

by Goodforthesoul



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: "Marrying the Hangman", Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Inspired by Poetry, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark Are Not Related, Jon Snow is Condemned to Death, Jon Snow is Not a Stark, Jon Snow is a Member of the City Guard, Marriage of Convenience, Sansa is condemned to death, inspired by Margaret Atwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:20:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodforthesoul/pseuds/Goodforthesoul
Summary: She has been condemned to death. She is the traitor’s daughter, which is not so different from being a traitor herself. Or so the men who have condemned her said. His blood flows through her veins, and so her blood should follow her father’s where it dripped down the steps of the Great Sept of Balor.He is to die and she is to die, but together they might live.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	The Headsman's Wife

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by Margaret Atwood's "Marrying the Hangman," which is a beautiful and haunting poem. Definitely recommend reading it if you have not. The poem is based on the historical account of Jean Corolère and Françoise Laurent, who were imprisoned together in New France in the mid-18th century. As the poem narrates, Corolère became the hangman, saving his life, married Laurent, saving hers. After reading this poem to prep for the start of the fall semester, I could not get this idea out of my head, so I figured I would share it with all of you.

She has been condemned to death. She is the traitor’s daughter, which is not so different from being a traitor herself. Or so the men who have condemned her said. His blood flows through her veins, and so her blood should follow her father’s where it dripped down the steps of the Great Sept of Balor. 

She wonders if her head will be stuck on a pike upon the city wall the way her father’s has. His was a warning to other would-be traitors, the prince had told her. He had taken her to see her father's head, hair tangled and matted with blood, mouth hanging open, skin sagging with decay. She had thought that your eyes closed when you died, but her father’s were open, wide and unseeing. This was before she was condemned to die. Who was her rotting face meant to warn, she wonders. The daughters of other would-be traitors? She knows they have no use for such a warning, for what can they do with it? Yet who else will heed the warning that comes from the flies that will buzz in her mouth like words and the maggots that will fall from her eyes like tears? Who else will care about the death of the girl who is nothing more than the traitor’s daughter?

She has not always been the traitor’s daughter. She had once been Lady Sansa, the blood of Winterfell, the eldest daughter of Eddard Stark, betrothed to the golden prince who will one day sit upon the Iron Throne. But Lord Eddard is dead and she has heard whispers that Winterfell has fallen and the Starks are no more. Her engagement has been broken and she is nothing but the daughter of a man who had betrayed the crown and had paid with his life and now because she is none of the things she once was, there is little left for her to do but pay as well.

She is to be beheaded, but there is no headsman, so now there is just waiting. Waiting, the days and nights blurring together, endless and beginningless, in a cell that is too black for the light of the sun and the stars to penetrate. 

There is no headsman, so there is no way to escape, for the only way for a woman to escape execution is to marry the headsman. The thought of marrying the old executioner, Ilyn Payne, fills her with more dread than the thought of her death. He had frightened her with his eyes that were deader than her father’s were when she had seen his head on the walls, than hers will be when her head is mounted there as well. She did not like the way his mouth, empty of words, was black as the pitch they would pour over her face. He is dead now, as she will be soon with no headsman to marry and no hope of escape.

She has almost nothing in this black cell, but she still has words. Her voice the only thing left to her after everything has been taken away. Well, not the only thing, for she also has a hole in the wall of her cell and a man on the other side.

He, too, is waiting for death, is waiting for the headsman. Had there been one, he could not escape his death by marrying him. But there is no headsman, so he can escape by becoming him. 

And so she has her voice and the hole in the wall and the man on the other side and a plan for how they might both escape.

She speaks to him in the darkness. He has a voice of the North, and in his mouth are memories of snow and ice and wind, of heather and holly, of home and of freedom. 

He is a bastard he tells her. He has served with the city watch since his mother’s death. When the Lord of the North had been killed, his head mounted on the city wall, for being a traitor, some of the other guards had accused him of betrayal as well. They had attacked him, beat him, tried to stab him with their knives, and when he fought back they had him arrested for assaulting his fellow watchmen, for desertion, for cowardice. But he is no coward, and she hopes that he would be brave enough to do what they must. She hopes that she will be brave enough as well.

He tells her that his name is Jon and she tells him hers. It feels like a lie, for she is no longer Sansa, not as she was. In the blackness of the cell, she does not feel like anyone at all. 

When she confesses about her father, when she tells him that Eddard Stark was no traitor, he is kind. She feared that he would blame her father for the beating he received, the death that he is promised, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tells her he is sorry and he listens to her weep. The stone walls of the cell are hard and cold and offer little comfort but she imagines his warmth on the other side, the heat of another body, which is, for now at least, alive. 

He is to die and she is to die, but together they might live.

She dares not speak of her plan too soon. For as a man, he does not need her to escape, though as a woman, she relies on him. She cannot not become the headsman. She can only marry one. There is no such thing as a headswoman. 

So she bides her time and speaks to him in the darkness, spends the endless and beginningless days and nights separated by a stone wall but in his company. And when she says his name, she lets her tongue curl around it, pull it closer. 

For she still has her voice, her words, and she uses it to tell him stories, to weave tales around him. As a girl, she always loved stories, and now she recounts them as best she can. She tells him legends of brave knights, of great sacrifice, of love, and she hopes it will be enough. 

His voice is kind, and he tells her that her stories remind him of home. She thinks that perhaps it will not be such a bad thing to marry him. Certainly no worse than death. And because she has been condemned to die, those are her options. She makes her choice. 

She dares not speak of her plan too late. For another headsman will be gotten, and then they will both be put to death. 

He knows that life as a headsman will be hard. He will be hated and feared and scorned. But as a bastard, he is hated and scorned already. And a life of being feared and despised is better than no life at all. And because he has been condemned to die, those are his options. He makes his choice. 

When she speaks to him of marriage, she offers her hand, but she does not promise her heart. She is no longer sure that she has a heart to give. Hers has been spiked on the walls of the city and buried in the rubble of Winterfell. He offers her his home, his warmth, his bed, his protection. He offers her life, and she takes it. 

In this cell, they are not who they once were. That has been erased from them. And when they leave, they will be different still. He a headsman. She his wife. 

When she walks to freedom on his arm, she hears the whispers that she is a clever bird to have so flown from her cage. But she fears that she had only exchanged the one for another. It is too soon to tell. They say that she must be quite cunning to have trapped him, and she wonders if either of them will ever truly be free.

They rent a room that he will pay for with his sword, with the blood and crimes of the men he kills. She stands before him, no longer just a voice in the darkness, but a woman of flesh. A wife. He is handsomer than she thought he would be, hair dark curls, eyes deep and grey. She wonders if he finds her beautiful. Men did, once, when she was Sansa. But there were no mirrors in the cell and no light to see by even if there had been. When she looks into his face, though, he becomes her mirror, and she knows he finds her beautiful. 

He takes her into his arms, and she feels his warmth, his heat that courses through her, and she feels her heart beat, surprised to find that she has it still. She takes him to bed, and he kisses her, a hand on her breast and one between her thighs, and again when he is inside of her, their bodies pressed together, her heart pounding against the cage of her ribs, and she wonders if this is what it feels like to be free. 


End file.
